AMERICA FERRERA (Betty Suarez)
On her castmates: ”It’s a wonderful for them to give up their night and come away from their families to be here supporting something I care so deeply about. [There's] an overwhelming amount of love in the cast.”
Why the show was important to TV: ”I feel like when the show came on the scene it was truly, truly unique. There was nothing that looked like it or felt like it. There had never been a TV show that centered around a young, smart Latina girl. And that was huge. I also think that what the characters Justin, Mark Indelicato, and Marc, played Michael Urie, did for the gay community was tremendous. [The show] just felt like it was truly a home for the underdog. That’s what sticks out when I think about it.”
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ANA ORTIZ (Hilda Suarez)
Her favorite moments: ”The opening show of season 2, with Santos and Hilda, I think that’s definitely one of my favorite moments of the show and moments for Hilda. There was also – probably less memorable to everyone else but to me it was really special – there was an episode shortly after Santos died where Justin’s character was acting all gangster, acting out, getting in fights, and Hilda and he really had to find their way back to each other and deal with each other. That was really special because that’s when I knew that Mark Indelicato was one of the finest actors I knew. And to see this little kid blossom into this wonderful actor and have a scene partner like that was really wonderful. And to be quite honest, I think this wedding episode was one of my favorites, too. Justin’s character coming out to the family, Hilda finally finding her true love, Betty realizing her dreams, it just all solidified. It had the danger of becoming packed and sort of becoming pedestrian, but the writers did such an amazing job keeping it really Betty and keeping it funny, charming, and intimate. And I got to wear a wedding dress!”
What Ugly Betty meant to her: ”I can’t tell you what an honor it’s been to be part of such an iconic Latin family. I’m going to get emotional! It’s meant so much [tears up] in my community just walking down the streets and hearing Oh my God, that’s my family. Just hearing that and seeing young people recognize themselves not only in Betty, but in Hilda and Justin and Papi. It was so incredible. To take that one step further, I heard that from non-Latino families. It’s really about representing working-class, real, blue-collar families when most of us are living paycheck-to-paycheck and figuring out how to pay our health care. It just wasn’t being shown on TV.”
On ”little Mark”: ”[America and I] made a pact with one another that we want to stay in little Mark’s life. We call him ‘little Mark’ but he’s taller than both of us. But we’ve always called him little Mark and little Mark he shall remain. We want to make sure that we continue to stay in his life because for all intents and purposes, we are his family and he is ours.”
Favorite Hilda line: (after ripping out Gina Gambarro’s hair extension) ”It looks like we now owe you four thousand dollars…and fifty cents.”
Second-favorite line: ”When Hilda was selling HerbaLex and her motto was ‘You gotta look it to be it! That’s the Herbalux way.’ America and I always did that. That was our little private joke.”
VANESSA WILLIAMS (Wilhelmina Slater)
On her favorite Betty scene: ”When Michael Urie and I were stuck in Queens and we were approached some ladies of the evening in the corner who wanted to attack me for my fur, and we ended up running down the street and finding shelter in the church and I took my heel and broke open the collection box to get money. It was a great start to a wonderful four years.” [Episode: ''Lose the Boss'']
On the show’s famous one-liners: ”The thing about Betty is that you have to be willing to make fun of yourself. You can call every other character a name. I love the fact that Wilhelmina never remembered Amanda’s name ever. You have to be willing to have people joke about you, especially my [character]. I was always attacked for my ageism, my being cold, my being friends with Dick Cheney – that was always a hilarious running gag.”
JUDITH LIGHT (Claire Meade)
Favorite scene to film: ”[One of the most] memorable scenes is the scene I did with Vanessa with the two of us in the pool. You know, it was so easy. They had orchestrated it so beautifully so that there wasn’t a lot of really anything. I went in first and did some of my coverage, and she came in did some of her coverage. Then the two of us said, ‘Let us just do this.’ The ease of it was really something that really surprised me. I knew Vanessa and I were going to have fun together, but we were like two little girls having this wonderful time in the pool.” [Episode: ''The Past Presents the Future'']
Her favorite quote of Claire’s: ”You seem surprised — yet your eyebrows haven’t moved at all.”
Why Betty was important: ”The show is a stealth weapon because of what it did under the guise of this world of fashion and this exciting New York life. What it really did was it brought home that this young woman was the sage, the wise one, the one with the integrity, the one with the clarity, and for all intents and purposes she looked like ‘the other.’ And everybody, I don’t care who you are, doesn’t feel like they’re the right stuff. Everybody has a Betty inside of them, and so I think for everyone, it touched their hearts in a way that was extremely rare.
On America Ferrera: ”She’s an extraordinary woman. That was the other part of the stealth weapon: casting her. Not only is she a brilliant actress, but she an extraordinary human being. She’s old beyond her years. I mean, I’ve never seen anything quite like her. She carried this with grace and equanimity. She’s powerful and generous and smart. If I had had a child, a daughter…”
Favorite plot twist: ”The story that I had actually killed Fey Summers and all the twists and turns that happened before I actually went to prison.”
MARK INDELICATO (Justin Suarez)
Favorite memory on the show: ”I shot a scene with America on the front steps [during the last episode], which people have seen pictures of, and we are reenacting the scene we did in the pilot. It was my favorite because it was sort of a blast from the past, like déjà vu, sitting on those same steps saying close to the same words. You know, it’s kind of like just where it all started, and one of my fondest memories in shooting the pilot ended up being one of my favorite moments shooting the series.”
On an…Ugly Betty movie(?!?): ”It settled in pretty quick for me that it was over, and I wasn’t going to get to be Justin any more – at least for a while. Let’s do a movie! That’s what I say.”
Why Ugly Betty was an important show: ”It was a show led by a Latina girl. Not even a Latino period, but a Latina woman. And also, we are a very, very diverse cast, everyone knows that, and that’s one of the reasons the show was so famous. We’re all so very different and that’s what made us amazing. That’s why [viewers], especially the gay community, were so accepting of the show the way that it is. It’s kind of like Lady Gaga. A lot of people don’t understand her, but you love her. Sometimes people don’t understand Betty, but you love her.
Best Betty plot shocker: ”When Wilhelmina got shot. That was just crazy!”
DANIEL ERIC GOLD (Matt Hartley)
Favorite memory: “For me, the best moments were when we shot our Bahamas episodes because it was so nice to have this group of people in this exotic locale and work during the day and have a great time at night. I came in during the third season and they’re such a tight family, but I always felt so welcome by everyone and became close friends with most of the cast. So for me, that was the nicest time because we got to kick back by the great pool, go to clubs together, and do stuff we never would have done.”
Most memorable scene: ”The last scene my character has on the show was in front of the arch in Washington Square Park, where I say goodbye to Betty. And when I walked up there and saw the arch all lit up and all the cast and crew getting ready for a long night of shooting, I kind of got a lump in my throat because I couldn’t believe I had the opportunity to work in the city I love on the show I love.”
On why he’ll miss the show: ”Everything on the air now, it seems like it’s either a lawyer show, a cop show, or some kind of medical drama. It’s so limited. So to see a show with a heroine like Betty with her family and the challenges she faces as a single woman. You just don’t see a lot of those shows on television.”
